Yahoo! Panama: What Everybody Ought To Know About It

With the end of 2006 Yahoo! officially uncovered the commonly known Panama Update. Since that time the accounts are being upgraded from the older systems to this fresh system. Not all the accounts have been upgraded, however, it is expected the task would be full and finally accomplished by the end of march, approximately. Yahoo! Panama is definitely a welcome change.

Yahoo! Panama is surely a great improvement as compared to the previous one. A higher quality of searchers is unquestionably what Yahoo! Panama aims at. The new interface and ranking algorithm may involve a little bit of adjusting on the advertisers side. Scott on SEO blog has written an article, Yahoo Panama – Pros and Cons where he explains the benefits of Yahoo! Panama update:

Previously you were stuck with only one live ad for any given phrase; now you can create multiple ads for a given ad group.

Ad approval is now instant for most ads and keywords. While there is still a “pending approval” process for some sets of phrases, in many cases your ad changes and keyword additions are now instant.

Under the new Yahoo Panama the options are much more sophisticated. For example, there is an option for blocking entire continents for your ad campaigns.

The geo targeting options have also expanded to allow for more specific ad targeting. Advertisers now have the ability to target specific states and provinces – a feature previously unavailable.

Geo-targeting is one of the most preferred feature update of Yahoo Panama. PPC Advertising blog explains this as, “works by locating a user by his/her IP address or geo-specific terms in his/her search query. It applies both to the content network and the regular search network. Advertisers can choose to target an entire market region (the US and English speaking Canada) or regions. Regional targeting is broken further into either state/province/territory targeting or targeting by DMA”

Every coin has a flipside and so does Yahoo! Panama update. Most of the issues are relatively minor and should not be a major cause of concern for advertisers on top of their campaigns. The chief flaws occurs when one account is transferred from the previous system into the newly updated system. Scott gives an insight on the flipsides of Yahoo! Panama Update.

Once your account has been transferred, the new system will not log any of the old system historical data. While this information is still accessible by logging into the old interface (which is made read only), it would certainly make more sense if stats were available under the new account login.

Another issue campaign tracking. After the switch has been made, as long as you do not change any tracking settings everything should continue to work as normal; once you adjust the analytics or tracking options, you will need to replace your tracking code with a new piece of code provided by Yahoo.

There have been some reports that after the account transition some ad titles, descriptions, and even keywords, have been disrupted.

PPC Marketing Guide says that though the ability to have multiple ads in Yahoo! Panama is the best feature, but Yahoo! has not included conversion rate into their ad statistics.
The fields Yahoo currently reports on are:

Ad Name

Editorial Status

Display Rate (%)

Quality Index

Impressions

CTR (%)

Clicks

Although you can tell which message is more appealing to your audience, has a higher click through rate, you don’t know if that message is costing you more that another message with a lower click through rate.

Yahoo! would now be able match upto Google's AdWords. Beanstalk says, “this is a great step forward for Yahoo! (at least until Google and Microsoft upgrade their engines and once again move ahead). More importantly, this is a great step for advertisers who were, until now, frustrated with the differences in capabilities between what they should do with Ad Words vs. what they could do with Yahoo! Search Marketing.”

Steps required in each campaign in Yahoo!1.Log into your account. You will be presented with your account dashboard.
2.Click on the name of the campaign you wish to change
3.Click on “Edit Campaign” in the top right.
4.Click “Edit” at the top right of the “Campaign General Information” box.
5.Change the account name.
6.Click “Save Changes”.
7.Then click “Dashboard” to return to where you were.Google AdWords:1.Log into your account. You will be presented with the “All campaigns” view.
2.Click the checkbox beside the campaign you wish to rename and click “Edit Campaign”.
3.Enter a new campaign name.
4.Click “Save Changes” (also brings you back to where you were).

Not trying to project a negative image of Yahoo! Panama update, it is a job well performed. However, take a closer look! It takes seven step to perform a campaign in yahoo! And it takes Google just four. The multiple campaign edits might just frustrate the advertisers. Renaming the Google campaigns at one stance takes three step and one additional step for each campaign. But in Yahoo! These seven steps are required for each and every campaign.

The procedure might still be long but Yahoo! Panama update is attracting a lot of prospective advertisers. Getting around the new interface is a big improvement. The daily chore of managing a Yahoo! Search campaign will not be such a chore anymore.

Yahoo! Panama: What Everybody Ought To Know About It, 5.0 out of 5 based on 3 ratings

Navneet Kaushal

Navneet Kaushal is the founder and CEO of PageTraffic, an SEO Agency in India with offices in Chicago, Mumbai and London. A leading search strategist, Navneet helps clients maintain an edge in search engines and the online media. Navneet's expertise has established PageTraffic as one of the most awarded and successful search marketing agencies.

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